Whatever happened to Antifa?
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Or to Anonymous for that matter?
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A [email protected] shared this topic
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Not to be a "just Google it" type person, but I personally would read the Wikipedia articles on each. Wikipedia still has to be taken with skepticism, especially on decentralized movements that some would like to see be declared domestic terrorists, but I would believe Wikipedia more than randos on the internet.
For example, I am the King of Anonymous. I see everything. I hear everything. We are merely waiting in the shadows for our next opportunity. Oooooor, I'm just a nobody lying online for giggles.
I think the real answer is they were decentralized and people picked up or dropped the Anonymous or Antifa label as it was useful to them. There have been so many conspiracy theories and misinformation campaigns on both, mentioning them is guaranteed to get 95% of people bored and trying to to change topics. So for people trying to get attention, identifying as Antifa or Anonymous probably doesn't help them these days.
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Still there doing stuff, many activists realize after a few years that the impact of protests or even riots often isnt lasting and tend to either stop doing public activisim because they fear backlash, some make it their job and in NGOs where they stagnate because of bueraucracy and some will understand that only change changes things and start to sabotage the things that need said change.
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Anonymous still exists. Put out a statement yesterday. Antifa doesnt exist in any real sense. Like woke, dei, critical race theory, trans bathroom rapists, its part of the firehose of conspiracy falsehoods to keep the children in our society in a fear state shutting down their prefrontal cortex so they are incapable of rational thought as you implement fascism.
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Anonymous still exists. Put out a statement yesterday. Antifa doesnt exist in any real sense.
What? Literally any jackass can put out a statement and say they are "Anonymous" and it literally means nothing because Anonymous exists even less in a real sense than Antifa does, my dude.
Anonymous hasn't done anything significant in a decade.
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Antifa is not an organization. It is a belief that fascism is wrong for the development of a fair and just society.
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They're still there.
But irrelevant.
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You got things backwards.
The hackers known as anonymous all went their separate ways long ago, leaving 4chans anonymous to be little more than a series of social media accounts releasing videos periodically. You say "they released a statement yesterday".... Er... That's all they do. They haven't had any power and members with skill sets since 2008 or so.
...and antifa do exist. Most anarchist are, or are willing to call themselves antifa. A huge number of people used black block (blocking out), and mutual aid to manage, organize, and run the Black Lives Matters riots, and the Portland Corrections protests.
Behind the Bastards had a whole series detailing it, including all the local chapters and groups that cropped up or started in that period.
So pretty much the opposite of what you said: Anonymous doesn't really exist beyond constantly releasing statements, and antifa does exist and will most likely take up organizational roles if any long term street protests erupt.
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Lemmy ML got slow and gummy right after I posted this, should I delete, or am I just being paranoid?
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They rebranded, but I'm not at liberty to release any further details
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That last bit
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Spoken like someone who's never gotten an A in a "critical thinking" assignment
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This. Antifa was never a thing except in the minds of the fascists trying to rebrand antifascism as something bad. Like the migrant caravans of 2018, once it was no longer convenient they moved on to the next boogie man.
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There’s no organization called “Antifa,” though. It’s just a concept. There’s organizations calling themselves “Black Lives Matter” but most of them are (or were) just trying to (a) organize or (b) get donations and do nothing. Both are just ideas meant to unite disparate groups.
It’s like saying there was an official organization called La Résistance in France during WWII. It’s distributed, small, independent groups with similar ideologies that got a name in retrospect. There’s no central organization.
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The best time to be antifascist is 90 years ago, the second best time to be antifascist is today.
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Speaking of which, here is a helpful manual.
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Dude, OP didn't ask what anonymous has done that's significant in the last decade, they just asked what happened to anonymous, and this person gave an answer.
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Interesting, you picked two brands which aren't really single groups.
'Antifa' is a social movement which developed from a red united front organization in 1930s Germany[1] and turned into a general brand we see today. Any group of antifascists can identify as antifa using symbols and tactics. You can find a friend and go be antifa.
Similarly, 'Anonymous' grew out of social justice activism on 4chan and, as the name suggests, is a fluid kind of identity. Anyone can use the name, the original chatroom/group is less and less relevant as time goes on.
Both collectives are still present and doing things, but antifa groups are far more relevant. They're just not in the news as often as they were during BLM. Anarchist blogs and media outlets (e.g. Unicorn Riot and It's Going Down) often have updates on recent antifascist actions, including disrupting neo-Nazi protests and infiltrating+sabotaging their organizations.
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Antifa is a movement, not some centralised formally defined organisation. It's just short for anti-fascist. Plenty of antifascist groups still exist. Any group that labels itself as anti-fascist is antifa.
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So for people trying to get attention, identifying as Antifa [...] probably doesn’t help them these days.
People doing actions for clout are likely to be shunned as opportunistic. A well-known antifascist guide to doxxing Nazis straight up says [paraphrasing] "seeking clout will make people skeptical of your actions, just don't do it".
